


Unfaithful

by neko_kirin3104



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Horror, M/M, One Shot, Suicide, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 00:37:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1038266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neko_kirin3104/pseuds/neko_kirin3104
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes Jun and Sho three years to finally sit together and settle their differences. A lot has happened, even a lot more things have changed, but the love they share for the same man lingers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unfaithful

 

 

_“At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman.”  
_ **— Albert Camus** , _The Myth of Sisyphus_

   

 

  
_You wanna know my secret?_

  

The air between them is thick with rancor—

“It’s been a while, huh?”

Jun can feel its bite seeping through his skin, festering in his flesh. “Yeah.”

It has only been a couple of minutes since the man opened the door for him, shook his hand and asked him to come in, merely a few seconds after they both sat on the floor on opposite sides of the kotatsu, and he’s already feeling uncomfortable under the burning scrutiny of those cryptic round eyes.

He can’t tell what it is yet, but there is something about Sho Sakurai’s smile that doesn’t quite belong to the man he remembers—

“Have you heard from the others yet?”

“Yeah.” Jun shifts on his haunches to ease the tension on his legs, but nothing of the one that’s building up in his nerves, before he starts telling the man about their other bandmates.

About how he and Nino had stayed together through the whole ordeal because he had been driving the latter to his house when the news broke out, and the Nino has no one else to come back to after the whole sordid _accident_ has been contained.

About how Aiba has cracked up under the weight of the unforeseen horror, and of the eventual loss of his family to the plague, that their unhinged friend is now spending his days locked up in one of the few medical facilities that survived the devastation.

“That’s truly unfortunate,” Sho sighs before gingerly sipping his tea. He just as carefully places his cup back on the table and asks, “Is there anything I can do for him?”

Jun shakes his head. “Julie-san’s already taking care of it.”

“And Ninomiya-san’s doing okay?”

Jun flinches a little at the unfamiliar way the man has addressed their friend. “He’s fine.”

“But he didn’t come with you. Does he still resent me?” The lilt of anxiety in Sho’s voice doesn’t match the glint of amusement in his eyes, the hint of a smirk on his lips.

“There are things we need to talk about on our own.” Jun tells the truth, though it is also true that Nino feels rather wary of coming to this place. Not only because of the verbal row Nino had with this man in the past, but also because of the things they’ve been hearing about how Sho Sakurai has _changed_. How the man has folded in on himself and totally abandoned all traces of the unsullied idol he once projected.

Sho puts his elbow on the table and rubs his left thumb on his lips pensively. A gesture that is both familiar and unnervingly taunting that Jun almost chokes on the lump of apprehension that surges to his throat.

“What is it you want to talk about, Matsumoto-kun?”

Jun tries not to gag as he eyes the cup of tea in front of him with cautious longing. It has taken him two hours on his dirt bike to get to this place, and the current state of things isn’t doing any good to his already dry mouth.

But he’s also not taking any chances with this man. Not when Nino has made him promise never to let his guard down.

“Would you like something else?” Sho frowns, the patronizing tone in his voice more chilling than comforting. “I didn’t know you can tire of tea that easily—”

“Leader,” Jun grunts through his unease, finally daring to match his former bandmate’s unflinching gaze for the first time. “He was with you that night, wasn’t he?”

He almost misses the litter of emotions that flits pass Sho’s face, the subtle lines of ire that appear between the man’s brows, the brief narrowing of those scathing eyes that never once strayed from Jun’s post...

The visible tightening of the prominent jaws that speaks enough of the bitter resentment the man has been harboring for him.

“Yes.” The amused grin that accompanies Sho’s next words does little to alleviate Jun’s growing anxiety. “But what does it matter to you, Matsumoto-kun?”

Jun clenches his fists at the numbing dread that crawls on his skin. This man obviously knows exactly what he came here for, but also wants the satisfaction of hearing him say the words.

“He’s my friend, too, Sakurai-san,” he says instead.

Sho hides his dissatisfaction behind his teacup, but his watchful eyes linger on Jun.

The younger man already regrets having shaken his host’s hand earlier...

  

  
_I remember the moment our eyes met_

  

Satoshi Ohno was an enigma. A stubborn, devil-may-care senpai that a rebellious thirteen-year-old boy like Sho Sakurai could not help but admire.

He hounded the boy whenever he could, masking his starry-eyed wonder behind a scowl because he could not risk having Ohno call him out on something he could not fully understand himself.

He would forever be grateful for that spark of madness that got him submitting an application to Johnny’s, although being in this kind of world has never once crossed his mind.

He secretly thanked the grouchy choreographer for telling him to stand behind Ohno and watch the boy’s every move at rehearsals, thus giving him a perfect excuse to keep his gaze fixed on his senpai without seeming too obvious about his intentions.

Then again, he hardly knew what his intentions were.

He wanted to be close to Ohno. He wanted the prestige of being Ohno’s friend. He wanted to be part of that small circle of people that the elusive boy would allow to get close to him, talk to him, laugh with him, share secrets with him, and just _be_ with him through thick and thin.

It took Ohno going to Kyoto, Sho visiting him there, and a late night chatter about nothing at all for him to finally snag a place in his most admired senpai’s posse.

And his list of things to love about the boy continued to grow.

Satoshi Ohno could make him laugh like there’s no tomorrow, ask him questions that made him think until his brain froze over, and then think some more until he eventually realized the surprising depth of the laid-back boy’s words.

It was only Satoshi Ohno who could ever calm his anxieties down with a simple pat on the shoulder and the most reassuring smile...

It was also Satoshi Ohno alone who could ever send his manliness into a chaotic scramble for dominance whenever the boy as much as looked into his eyes, brush his slender fingers on his cheek, and send warm ripples down his face with his drunken breath while saying, “I like you very much, Sakurai-kun...”

Sho would flush to the very tips of his toes and chuckle like he thought his senpai was kidding.

But right there and then, he knew he wanted to be with no one else.

  

  
_At any rate, it's all lies_

  

It has been three years, though it feels like a whole lifetime has passed.

He’s seen his share of friends, acquaintances, and strangers succumbing to the plague, abandoning their very natures to satisfy a sudden craving for flesh—red, warm, and bleeding.

But he can only imagine how much Sho Sakurai has seen, how many wretched decisions the man has had to do to survive, being among those who had been left behind at the center of all that chaos.

“It took us a while to find you,” Jun says, trying to look undaunted under the steady heat of the man’s gaze.

“I’ve been here.” Sho mutters airily, refilling his own cup with tea. “You haven’t touched anything, Matsumoto-kun. Are you that suspicious of me?”

“I did not come here to bond, Sakurai-san,” Jun says, ignoring the rumbling protest of his stomach at the sight of the sweet cakes generously laid out in front of him. “I want you tell me... I need to know...” He sees the frown forming on the man’s face and instantly knows he doesn’t need to say any more.

“Aren’t you the one with something to tell me? About you and Satoshi-kun, perhaps?”

Although Jun knows this is coming, nothing could’ve prepared him for the paralyzing chill that gripped his whole body upon hearing those words, _that_ name.

He feels like he has just played straight into the man’s hands, and there is nothing more he can say to defend himself.

“Help me understand, Matsumoto-kun,” Sho says, no longer trying to mask the hatred in his voice. “I want you to tell me why you did what you did.”

  

  
_A plain canvas is being spread with color_

  

Jun Matsumoto reminded him a lot of himself when the boy started following him around, latching on to his words and even sometimes imitating his every movement and gesture.

Macchan’s blatant admiration amused him and at the same time distracted him from the uncomfortably _real_ affections he was beginning to have for the designated leader of their newly debuted group.

For several years, he immersed himself in watching over Macchan, cleverly relieving the willful boy’s needy whines and teenage angst like Ohno had once did for him, and like he would still occasionally do for Ohno.

For several years, he almost fooled himself into believing he could move past his twisted feelings for their Leader, but it only took a playfully sad pout and some whispered words of wistful abandon from the man to send Sho spiraling back down into the depths of his disturbingly unmanly confusion.

_“I kind of miss spending time with you, you know...”_

It muddled him so, how Satoshi Ohno could still have the same disarmingly sensual effect on him even after years of being together. Even after he had convinced himself, over and over again, that he was straight.

As straight as an arrow.

His cock reacted to naked women...

As much as it did to Ohno’s naked butt—

“You like Leader, don’t you, Sho-kun?” the surprisingly perceptive Macchan teased him one day.

He instantly shifted his lingering gaze and busied himself with rubbing his skin raw, while drowning his embarrassment in a hearty exclamation of praise for the wonders of public bathhouses.

“Right on, Sho-chan!” Aiba abruptly agreed.

“Hear! Hear!” Ohno seconded, pumping his fist in the air.

Nino threw him a knowing smirk and decided to taunt him by offering to rub Ohno’s back, his eyes silently challenging Sho to protest and out himself as his hand slipped under the water to grope their startled Leader’s behind.

Nino had always been able to read him to the deepest corners of his soul. His sly friend knew how to work him up, stretch him out thin until he broke under the pressure of his own stubborn pretenses.

It was Nino who posed the biggest threat on him by practically rubbing himself on Ohno until Sho was reeling from all his efforts to bury his Leader-lust under a thick layer of useless air muscles.

He wasn’t gay, but he wanted Ohno.

It was as simple as that.

It was also complicated like that.

Ironically, it was Macchan who came to him and said, “Why don’t you just tell him how you feel? Maybe you can work something out and _just_ move on. You’re not kids anymore.”

It was enough to spark something within him, a flame of courage that melted down his own inhibitions and finally allowed him to step out and reach further for that one thing he never thought he could ever have.

He did work something out with Ohno. But he also realized he never wanted to move on from there.

In the end, it was also Macchan who would threaten to oust that flame.

  

  
_With sweet expectation, you're next to me_

  

A lot of things have changed. The whole country itself has been altered. Not beyond recognition but damaged enough to keep several generations of people in a suspended state of unrest.

It doesn’t help that in the midst of it all, Jun has to find himself sitting right here, stewing in his own guilt before the man he has betrayed.

“I didn’t do it to spite you, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he insists, his voice low and rough with resentment.

“I know,” Sho replies calmly, making Jun bristle even more. “Satoshi-kun did make it easy, didn’t he?”

Jun can’t tell whether the man is taunting him or is deliberately insulting his own lover. He grounds his jaw in anger and hisses through his teeth. “You don’t know... You’ve never seen the way his eyes teared up every time you made him feel like he’s worth nothing compared to everything else you needed to do.”

Sho stares hard at him, his jaws quivering in silent rage.

“You don’t know how he broke inside whenever he publicly denied wanting to share his life with anyone, because he didn’t want to seem too needy in your eyes.”

Sho presses his lips in a tight line, still refusing to say anything to defend himself against the previously unspoken truths that are now being mercilessly laid bare before him. His eyes glisten with tears as he bravely keeps his gaze on Jun.

“You were hardly around whenever he needed you, and came to him only when it’s convenient for you. You left him hanging far too many times—”

“I never left him!” the man finally snarls as the first tears trail down his red cheeks. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” he adds in a voice raspy with guilt and self-loathing. “You don’t know... You know nothing!” The man furiously rubs his left palm on his face, getting rid of all traces of this unplanned show of weakness.

Jun’s chest clenches painfully as his own eyes become heavy with tears—of sadness, of longing, of regret...

Of that small hint of fear clawing at the back of his head about what has become of the man he came here to see...

Three years ago, an unexpected abomination shook the world nearly off its hinges, throwing all realities they ever knew into chaos.

Three years later, the problem has been completely contained, their city once again safe and habitable enough to come back to, and yet Jun can swear he’s never been gripped with as much torment then as he is now just by being here with Sho.

Or the shell of the man who once was Sho.

“Tell me,” the man begins to speak again, putting on yet another mask of undaunted scrutiny. “When did you begin feeling this way about him?”

Jun frowns, the sudden movement of his face causing a pair of wanton tears to escape his eyes. He wipes them away with the back of his hand as he hisses, “What does it matter, Sakurai-san?”

“It does,” Sho says, his voice flat, yet his eyes sharp with menace. “Because I know exactly when it began for him.”

  

  
_My mind is swimming in the memories_

  

The first time Satoshi called him up of his own will, Sho was dashing out of his parents’ house before he could even figure out what was happening.

_“Sho-kun, I messed up.”_

With just a few words, the man had once again succeeded in reawakening the disturbing feelings he thought he had already left buried in the sheets of the love hotel that bore witness to their first and supposedly last sexual encounter.

Sho got what he wanted and Satoshi had been nothing but accommodating.

But apparently, it hadn’t been enough.

He picked the obviously stoned and drunken man up from some random karaoke box, stuffed him into his car and hurt his head the next several minutes trying to decide where to go from there. He couldn’t possibly drive Satoshi home looking like he had just been doing things he knew he shouldn’t be doing.

In the end, he decided to call his mom and make up some lousy excuse about meeting up with friends, before checking into the nearest hotel in the vicinity.

And it was while he lay on the couch, staring at Satoshi’s sleeping form on the bed that he decided he had had enough of denying himself the pleasures and all the uncharted wonders of having this man in his life, to hold and protect like nothing else mattered.

But Satoshi wouldn’t make it any easier for him, as the man repeatedly got hung up on one straight relationship after another, over and over again, until the wild late-night escapade from which Sho had picked him up finally came around to bite him in the face several years later.

Sho literally went through hell and high waters to keep their Leader from getting kicked out of the group, even engaging in a fearless altercation with the President himself, and blindly throwing out every possible threat he could get his grubby hands at until the old man eventually relented and decided to turn his rage onto something else.

Long established bonds were cut off, generous bribes handed out, and a few dubious threats were made here and there all for the sake of covering up their Leader’s reckless ass.

It had been a tough month for all of them, and a much tougher turnabout for Satoshi Ohno’s life.

But it was also around that time when Sho found an exploitable opening to try and win Satoshi’s affections back, and possibly keep the man from his self-destructive tendencies for good.

Satoshi felt indebted to him, and all Sho ever asked in return was to have him by his side.

“Let’s make this work, Satoshi-kun. We both know this is what we’ve always wanted. Just you and me. No more hang-ups. No more pretensions. No more lies.”

Despite the hint of hesitation still visible in his eyes, Satoshi quietly submitted himself into Sho’s embrace.

And it was at that moment that Sho realized what he could and could never do for this man—

He could defy anyone and anything to keep him.

Because he could never let him go.

  

  
_You follow me in an endless dance in the dark_

  

Although they have been among those transported into a safer place mere hours after the outbreak, Jun has kept abreast of everything that was happening in the city through aerial reports and online updates from the people trapped within the heavily barricaded parameters of Tokyo Metropolis.

And in all the time he spent trapped within the walls of the quarantine camp in Fukuoka, he never once stopped thinking about the man who has unexpectedly stolen his heart.

“He seemed different when he came back from your New York trip,” Sho says, his long bony fingers languidly tracing the edge of his cup.

Jun cannot find the words or the strength to reply and just lets his silence answer the unspoken question hanging in the air. He tries to keep his face straight as unbidden visions of his satiated self lying on his stomach beside Leader in some fancy New York hotel begin to fill his mind.

Sho sighs loudly and says, “I see.” as though he really did _see_ from Jun’s memories. “I knew there was more to that sleeping-in-the-park-and-talking-to-birds gag Satoshi constantly talked about when you came back.”

Jun almost feels annoyed at the man’s perceptiveness. The gag has indeed been Satoshi’s desperate attempt to deny the deeper implications of what happened between them for as long as he could.

“And the Paris-London trip.” Sho’s snorty chuckle sounds unnervingly jeering. “And those late nights you spent together planning for the concerts. Ha! I should’ve known! How could I have been so stupid?!”

Jun reels back from the sudden bite in the man’s voice, the scorching accusation in his eyes. He’s suddenly remembering all the stories he’s heard and has refused to believe about this man.

“You seem to mix business with pleasure quite well, Matsumoto-kun.” The man snorts in disdain. “Something I fail at apparently, among other things.”

The very potent mix of embarrassment, guilt and animosity sullying his nerves begins to seethe through Jun’s pores, parches his throat and almost makes him betray himself and reach out for his tea.

Of course he feels sorry for what he did! But he also knows he will do it over again in a heartbeat.

Sho takes a calming breath and lays his clenched fist on the table. “Did you know he was going to break up with me? Did you ask him to?”

Jun frowns at this revelation as his heart misses a beat. “No.”

“He never told you?” Sho exclaims in mock amusement. “How unfortunate!”

The man’s travesty drips with so much sinister intent, Jun swears he can almost smell it in the air, masked in the thick, heady scents of aromatherapy diffusers.

It is an unpleasant smell, a rotten smell that reminds him of the plague, of the walking corpses that have previously littered the streets of Tokyo and threatened their very existence.

“Too bad he’s already changed his mind.” Sho sneers at him and Jun’s skin prickles with fear.

This is the first time in three years he has ever felt _scared_ of a living man.

 

  
_But you were mine_

  

It’s almost funny how things could drop from a point of pure exhilaration to the gnawing depths of sheer pain in a blink of an eye.

One moment they had just been wrapping up their last concert for their five-dome tour. The next, he and Satoshi found themselves trapped inside his car, a charming sakura tree looming in front of them, and a couple of eager girls banging at their windows.

It wouldn’t have been a problem except that the front hood of their car was wedged into the tree, half of Satoshi’s face was covered in blood because the idiot couldn’t be bothered to put on his seatbelt when Sho asked him to, and the girls peering at them from outside were anything but human.

He had suspected something was not right the moment he heard the faint sounds of police sirens in the air. But he had been too distracted by a more pressing, more personal matter to even take heed.

They hadn’t been listening to the news as they drove home, either. Opting instead to try and talk about what Satoshi had told him back at the dressing room before he practically dragged his protesting lover out of Tokyo Dome and demanded that they go home together and fix their problems on their own.

They didn’t really talk much, though. Just wallowed in the tension that was quickly growing thick between them while Satoshi occasionally mumbled about how he wanted to go home and be with his mother tonight.

Sho’s whole body had still been buzzing from the confrontation he just had with Nino over a rather offensive remark the latter had made about Satoshi’s butt.

Making lascivious jabs at their Leader’s body parts had always been a norm with Nino. But Sho, for the longest time, had also been quietly suspecting his lover of stepping out on him, and hearing those words from Nino’s mouth tonight just set him off on a long-ignored path to jealousy.

He was tired. He was threatened. And he felt _guilty_ because he knew he had nobody else to blame but himself.

And the man who had been taking advantage of Satoshi’s weakness.

He was screaming before his mind could remember logic and decency.

Aiba and Macchan were between them instantly, but not after he and Nino had both said a few yet sharply hurtful words they could never take back again.

Nino’s frankness cut him down to size. “Do you even remember the last time you had sex with Oh-chan?”

“It’s none of your business!” he snarled under his breath, already withering inside from the argument he knew he had just lost.

Nino neither denied nor confirmed his accusation. And suspecting Macchan, who had always been supportive of him and Satoshi, was the last thing on his mind.

Then Satoshi just had to add to his distress by telling him the last thing he had ever expected to hear from his lover—

_”Sho-chan, I don’t wanna do this anymore.”_

His complete descent into darkness began with those words.

And the devastation that hounded their lives afterward just added injury to an already festering wound.

  

  
_In this strange game, you don't know what you think_

  

Nino knew he had lost his family the moment they stopped responding to his calls.

Aiba’s family had been safe until an unfortunate oversight involving a newly arrived survivor with an expertly hidden bite turned and raged havoc at their camp.

When Jun found out his family was safe in another camp, he was relieved and grateful, though his happiness would never be absolute.

He had already lost a handful of his friends to the plague.

Sho Sakurai and Satoshi Ohno had initially been thought to be among them—

“I heard you were among those who strongly protested against razing the city to the ground.”

It is becoming hard to tell the intentions behind Sho’s words as his taunting eyes seem to mock the calmness in his voice.

“Some people believed finding a cure for it is the best course of action,” Jun says, though he knows such ideals mean nothing to them now.

Sho snickers, aged crow’s feet appearing on his eyes. “I guess being swaddled up safely on your asses does give you time to waste on such childish fantasies.”

“They’re not childish—”

“But you’ll agree they’re fantasies, yes?” Sho clucks his tongue, rubs his left hand to his chin and murmurs, “What fools...”

“It’s been hard for us, too, you know.” Jun has had enough of the man’s lofty manners, mocking him mercilessly like he thinks Jun has been in a bubble of oblivion all this time. “Nino never got to see his family again. Aiba lost his at camp. And I...”

He stops and cast his eyes down in uncertainty and a sudden rush of grief.

“What?” Sho prods. “What exactly did you lose, Matsumoto-kun? Some friends? A few acquaintances—?”

“I lost Leader.”

The silent space between them ripples with tension until Sho finally says in a quiet voice that doesn’t seem too detached from the sudden softening of the angered edges in his eyes. “You really do love him, don’t you?”

Jun knows he doesn’t need to answer that as he sniffles against the tears building up at the back of his eyes again. He has mourned Satoshi Ohno for the past three years and it still doesn’t feel like he’s cried enough.

“But your people didn’t find any cure, did they?” Sho whispers grimly. Jun looks at his former bandmate and almost lost it completely at the man’s next words—

_“In the end, they all had to die anyway.”_

 

  
_Unable to break away_

  

This was how the undead ripped Sho Sakurai’s soul apart—

After a couple of police officers shot the two girls scratching hungrily at their car, he and Satoshi barely survived the quintet of flesh-eating abominations that attacked the police men in turn, and drove away on the now orphaned police car.

They reached Satoshi’s place first, just in time to find his sister’s family feasting on his lifeless dad.

Sho had to forcibly drag the stupefied Satoshi away from that place, with his lover’s growling nephews hot on their heels.

They found Mrs. Ohno in a nearby convenient store with a few other survivors, and had to practically throw her into the back of the car and dash away before she could even think of taking in more people than they could possibly accommodate. They did still have to check on Sho’s family, after all.

They found Mai shaking in a corner of their once classy kitchen, their father’s gun discarded on her feet, and their parents both dead on the other side of the room.

“They were going to attack me, Onii-chan! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” the deranged woman sobbed wretchedly in Mrs. Ohno’s arms.

Sho pressed his hands to his face in a futile attempt to hold back the anguished screams threatening to escape his whole being. He didn’t know what was worse, the fact that his parents were dead, or that his own sister had killed them in self-defense.

He felt Satoshi’s arms wrapping around his waist from behind and his knees completely folded from under him, sending both himself and his lover in a sobbing mess on the floor.

Everything was all fucked up, and he couldn’t even begin to understand enough to ask the questions.

Satoshi was only starting to feel the grief over losing his own father, his sister and her whole brood, and Sho, as soon as he realized this, turned to wrap his lover in his own tight embrace.

They were suspended in this abject tableau of mourning when a familiar voice called out from the kitchen doorway, “Onii-chan...?”

The sight of Shu, his beloved younger brother, almost like his own son, re-ignited Sho’s previously dwindling will for life. He rushed to hug the younger man and smiled despite himself when Shu hugged him just as tightly back.

“I am glad you’re okay,” he said.

“I am, too, Onii-chan,” Shu replied, sniffling. “But we have to leave.”

They left the police car in the driveway and took the family car. Shu had enough clarity of mind left to pick up their father’s gun. Mrs. Ohno grabbed the first aid kit Mai had pointed out to her to treat her son’s head wound.

They got into the vehicle just in time to escape their snarling, lumbering neighbors, who were, for some reason, converging on their house.

They would soon figure out that the flesh-eating creatures, like any other types of predator, were attracted to the smell of blood, and the Sakurai residence reeked of it.

For the next few days they bore witness to the extent of the devastation that spread like wildfire throughout the city, without fully understanding anything else but that they had to keep moving if they didn’t want to be eaten alive.

Everything and _nothing_ happened as they did in the movies. They’ve got the blood and gore down pat, but nothing of the confused mess of raw emotions involved in trying to survive, and live to try and survive again for another day.

Their car broke down a couple of weeks later, although not of its own doing. They first sustained a flat tire, ran out of gas and broke a couple of windows in their attempts to escape one flesh-eating horde after another.

They then had to travel on foot and find refuge in empty houses along the way, in hopes of making it to the transport vehicles they had been hearing about in the news in one piece.

But they would never make it there...

Mrs. Ohno’s efforts to keep Mai on her feet ended up in vain when the woman’s sanity snapped one night and she blindly threw herself out of a second floor window straight into the hungry horde waiting for them outside.

Mai’s screams of pain haunted Sho’s nightmares for many weeks to come.

It took Satoshi begging him to stay strong and a teary-eyed Shu telling him how much he needed his older brother right now, to pull Sho away from lingering at second-floor windows with thoughts of following his sister’s lead.

Several days later, they made the mistake of trusting a man who lured them into following him into his house, where his infected family was waiting for him to bring them something to eat.

“They’re just sick!” the man insisted maniacally.” And they need to eat! They’re going to feel better! But they need to eat!”

They lost Mrs. Ohno in that house.

Shu got bitten in the hand and lost their father’s gun, too.

And Satoshi quickly spiraled into a state of stunned depression. He did not cry. But he did not do much of anything either. He stopped talking. He stopped eating.

If the man could stop breathing at will, he would’ve undoubtedly done that, too.

Sho tried all his best to keep himself together, as much as he could, for the sake of the two most important persons in his life.

Three days later, Shu died from the infected bite and turned, not even giving Sho enough time to mourn.

Because barely a couple of minutes later, he would have to stab his own brother’s head with a kitchen knife to save his catatonic lover.

It frustrated Sho when he realized he had no more tears left to cry for Shu.

And when Satoshi began to speak again after two days, what he said in his delirium was the final blow that completely fractured Sho Sakurai’s mind—

_”I slept with Jun-kun... I’m sorry... I’m sorry...”_

 

  
_Don't ever look back_

  

Jun can no longer control the rush of tears from his eyes and he doesn’t even care that he’s sobbing like a girl.

Sho Sakurai has just dashed all hopes of him ever seeing Leader again.

Satoshi Ohno _is_ dead.

His former bandmate may not have directly confirmed it, but with the way Sho’s proud face has suddenly melted into an unmasked expression of sadness and loss, Jun knows this visit has been for nothing.

The man he has come here to see is no longer _here_.

“Did you regret it?” Sho asks in a soft voice that almost seems sympathetic.

“No.” Jun sniffs and rubs his palms roughly on his face again.

“Do you regret it now?”

Jun fixes his gaze on Sho, trying to look determined behind his snot and tears. “No.”

The man’s eyes narrow briefly in contempt, and just as quickly widens in amusement.

The proud Sho Sakurai is smirking at him again within the same second. “I see.”

Jun is already regretting ever feeling sorry for this man, as an ugly suspicion that has been gnawing at the back of his mind rises to the surface and forces itself out through his trembling lips. “Did you even try to save him?”

Sho’s eyes flashed with hatred as his lips stretch in a chilling sneer. “Matsumoto-kun, why do you always think the worst of me?”

 

  
_Just tell me, tell me why_

  

He loathed Satoshi for cheating on him. But he wasn’t completely heartless.

He also did acknowledge the fact that he was mostly to blame for prioritizing work over his lover in the past couple of years.

He would also admit that his competitive tendencies had taken over and made him a little jealous of his lover’s achievements.

He was only human after all.

He couldn’t help being stupid and selfish.

But he was also willing to make up for his mistakes and try harder to keep Satoshi by his side.

They did have days when they could just stay indoors and happily lose themselves in oblivion.

Days when they could just talk, and laugh, and hold hands while remembering the finer points of their lives to fool themselves into believing that nothing hideous was happening outside the walls of their quiet sanctuary...

But they both knew they were barely hanging on, him more than Satoshi.

There were days when he would look at himself in the mirror and cringe at the man he could no longer recognize mocking him from the other side.

Sometimes it bothered him, too, how thinking about his dead family made him feel more relieved than devastated.

That’s four less people to worry about, after all.

He occasionally remembered what became of Mrs. Ohno, and the memory of watching the old woman’s skin get torn out of her flesh would just make him _smile_.

That’s one less person to fight over Satoshi’s affections, after all.

He also hadn’t forgiven the woman for letting his sister jump to her death.

His better judgment told him not to take too much delight in such thoughts.

But once he stopped feeling disturbed by them, and allowed himself to embrace these thoughts as a defining part of his new self, he began to feel _lighter_.

In a twisted sense, this must be how it felt like to be _alive_.

He could breathe better when everything and everyone that could ever give him a reason to worry, to hurt, and cry vanished from his life.

All but one.

“When all this is over...” he whispers as he clasps his lover’s hand tightly under the sheets. “Satoshi-kun, if we both survive... Can we please start over?”

Satoshi’s grip slackens within his own. “I don’t know. I don’t think we should, Sho-kun... Not anymore...”

“Hm...” he hummed, feigning understanding as he pulled his lover in a tight embrace, a decision already forming in his mind.

That night, he made love with Satoshi for the last time.

In the morning, he walked out of the house that had been their refuge for the past four days.

He left the front door wide open.

   

  
_If you realize what's happening, then..._

  

Jun is starting to feel dizzy.

He’s sure he has not touched anything on the table, so it must be from the Ichimen-style conversation he is suddenly having with Sho.

About those walking corpses, of all things.

“Have you seen one up close?” the man asks, the fascination in his face making Jun’s head reel even more. “They might seem hideous at first glance, but when you give it time and let yourself remember that these creatures were once humans too, they will begin to look different. Almost _alive_ and _beautiful_.”

Jun narrows his eyes as his vision begins to blur and his heartbeat accelerates with anxiety _What is happening to me?_

“Their faces may be pale, their eyes may be gray and empty, their teeth may be smeared in blood, and rotten fissures may spontaneously open up on different parts of their bodies, their breaths may smell of decaying flesh, both from themselves and from the unfortunate dinner they just had... But other than those, they’re really not much different from us.” Sho chuckles in utter amusement, and Jun feels a vein in his head throb. “Hell, they may even be more alive than us, since they live by their raw desires and are not worried about pleasing or displeasing people. They just want to eat. They just want to survive. They would never have to pretend all their lives.”

There must be something else in this house that’s snared him unawares, because Jun is barely holding on to the last threads of his consciousness right about now.

“Matsumoto-kun, do you know why the government has made it absolutely mandatory to cremate a corpse within the first hour of death? It’s because, whatever _it_ is that’s brought that chaos, _it_ ’s inside all of us now. My dad wasn’t bitten. He died of an heart attack, came back to life and bit my mom. At least, that’s what Shu said. I never got to talk to Mai after that night...”

“Sakurai-san,” Jun gasps, gripping the edge of the kotatsu as his vision swims, his head floats and his chest hurts from his efforts to keep his breath even and stay awake. “What... What... _Shit_!”

“When we die, _it_ ’s going to take over, Matsumoto-kun,” Sho keeps saying, pointedly ignoring his distress, perhaps even enjoying it. “Whether we’ve been bitten, or scratched, or have been safely wrapped up in our own illusions of safety. _It_ will bring us back to our baser instincts, make us more alive after we succumb to death. Such is the irony of life, ne...”

Jun knows he is going to lose this battle as it takes everything he has left to keep his eyes open long enough to see Sho holding out his right palm in front of his face.

“You were smart not to touch anything on my table,” Sho scoffs. “But you shouldn’t have shaken hands with the man you betrayed.”

Visions of himself crying and rubbing his palms on his face filled the final blurry slates of Jun’s faltering senses.

“Satoshi-kun’s _alive_ , Macchan,” he thinks he heard Sho say. _“He’s been waiting for you...”_

   

  
_I'm frozen_

  

In the end, Sho came back to Satoshi’s aid, having realized in his idle meandering that he could not just let his lover go without a fight.

He had to convince Satoshi to stay with him. He had to try harder and beat Macchan’s memories out of his lover’s head.

Satoshi wasn’t sure if he was willing to start over with him, but Sho still had the rest of this lifetime to change his lover’s mind.

It was ironic that he realized all of this in front of the house of that deranged man who had lured them here like to-go dinners for his family.

It was rather romantic, really, now that Sho thought about it. To be so in-love as to defy all known moralities to sustain that flame.

With the same knife he had used to kill his own brother, he saved Satoshi from the small group of the undead that had thoughtlessly wandered into the house.

And with the same knife he had just used to save the man, Sho drove his unyielding promise to him, straight into his heart.

“Sho-chan... why...?” Satoshi’s unfocused eyes fluttered as he fell into Sho’s arms, his chest bleeding from more than just the knife wound.

As the man panted through his last huffs of breath, his eyes rolling into his head with the effort, Sho leaned down to plant one last kiss on his dying lover’s bloody lips.

The tears he never got to shed for Shu, came in a vengeful rush for Satoshi...

_“Rest now, my love...”_

 

  
_So feel me tonight_

  

It takes Jun a moment to remember where he is. Or rather, where he’s supposed to be.

Because being tied in some dimly lit room isn’t part of his plan at all.

“SAKURAI!!!” he screams as he struggles against the ropes binding him by his wrists and ankles to the wall. “WHAT THE FUCK!”

The unpleasant smell of the room seeps into his nose and triggers his gag reflex. It bites in its rottenness and is reminiscent of the plague and of the walking corpses that have previously threatened their existence.

“SAKURAI!!!” he calls out again, choking on the last syllable and ending up in a coughing fit when the taste of death grips at his throat. “You bastard!” he whines through his last ounce of strength as he sags weakly against his bonds.

He hears a door sliding open and instantly turns his gaze to the sound, pushing himself as upright as possible as he squints through his near-sightedness. It seems Sho Sakurai has taken the liberty of relieving him of his contacts in his drug-induced sleep.

He can make out the form of a man slipping out of what he can only presume to be a connecting room.

The man then lumbers toward him, groaning with each laborious step.

His heart stops beating as the groaning sounds gradually turns into unintelligible snarls that speak of raw and wordless delight, and nothing of recognition.

Because Jun doesn’t really need his contacts to know who this man is, though he doubts he is the same man he remembers.

A small sob escapes his throat as Satoshi leans into his face to sniff him.

This close, he can now see the man’s gray eyes, but they’re not completely empty.

Satoshi’s face is pale, but he’s not completely dead.

The man opens his mouth and snarls into his face, letting out a gush of breath that smells of decaying flesh before reaching out to grab Jun’s head in his hands.

Jun hardly flinches from the putrid scent as he tries to keep his eyes focused on the man he has once loved, slowly realizing that his feelings has never changed.

It will never change.

“Satoshi...” he murmurs before he closes his eyes and loses himself in the illusion that the flash of recognition he has just seen in the man’s eyes is real.

Sho Sakurai was right, though.

Satoshi Ohno _is_ beautiful...

 

  
_And you were mine_

 

Jun did not scream as much as Sho has expected and it really kind of disappoints him.

But the sight of the man’s mangled body when he takes a peek through the glass panel on the door of Satoshi’s room is enough make up for it.

It pleases him the most to see that Jun’s pretty face is completely gone, the man’s head cracked open from where Satoshi has pulled out his brain.

His lover sure knows what he wants, and never once denies himself the pleasure of taking first dibs at it.

Just like the Satoshi he knows from the past...

Just like the Satoshi he loves from then until now.

His lover looks over his shoulder and sees him peering through the glass, a piece of Jun’s guts dangling from his mouth.

The _newly alive_ man pulls himself up to his feet and shuffles to the door as he continues to munch on his treat, his eyes not once straying from Sho’s.

It is true that Satoshi has not retained any memory from his previous life, but he can easily remember the man who has continuously been providing for him.

His lover slaps a bloody hand to the glass lightly, and Sho’s hand automatically reaches up to press his palm against his side of the glass.

This is the closest he can ever get to intimacy with Satoshi.

And he hardly cares, as long as he can keep the man to himself.

_From now on..._ he thinks as he smiles through his tears, his mind swimming in the illusion of Satoshi smiling back at him. _I’ll never leave your side..._

#

**Author's Note:**

> • written for [je-trick-or-fic](http://je-trick-or-fic.livejournal.com/)
> 
> • credit to [yarukizero](http://yarukizero.livejournal.com/) for the translated lyrics used from the songs _Dance in the Dark_ and _Sugar and Salt_.


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